PracticeRoom

Wesley writes:

I go up to the roof of my building when I need to center myself or prepare for some big event. Sometimes I go up there just to think about things. I go up there with my really old mp3 player and look out at my neighborhood. At night it looks completely different. Up there, with all the lights on it looks more grand and peaceful than it ever seems to me on the street. Even in the summer when it’s ridiculously hot and gross, it’s always cool up there and there always seems to be a breeze.

I go up there to be alone, when I need to do things that are private. I practice martial arts up there. I listen to music. I preach sermons. Sometimes I just sit. It’s like my fortress of solitude. It’s strange to me how incredibly open and public it is, while at the same time so private and secluded. On the one hand, anyone could see me if they bothered to look up. But on the other hand, nobody ever does. I can be loud or quiet and nobody would ever know the difference.

It feels like I’m hovering above the world, rather than simply finding a corner of it to hide in. I’ve never put it that way before.

Edmund says:

I rise at 6:30a.m. (I won’t give the details about why,) and have to rush off to the bathroom. I get in the bathroom. I turn on the shower. I leave the lights off for a few minutes to let my eyes get used to the sunlight which is just beginning to come in the bathroom. While the water is heating up, I remove my clothes and do ten pushups in the nude.

I like to do this because, partly, I like the idea of beginning the day with some kind of physical activity. And part of it is I just can’t make it to the gym every day. It makes me feel like I earned my breakfast. It’s really kind of freeing, because we have such a sort of um, conservative image of our bodies, things to cover up, you wouldn’t think of running laps naked. I just like to feel unrestrained. Natural. Healthy. Just the way God made me. I also think it really makes my chest look nice, and I want my chest to look nice for my boyfriend. Because he likes my chest.

“B.M.” writes:

I have a practice about pooping. I don’t go until it’s ready to glide right out. It’s really pleasurable to not have to work hard. I’ve never been constipated. I think it’s mind-control. I can move my bowels by thinking about it. It’s some kind of Jedi mind trick, because you think to yourself, I’m going to have an excellent shit. You go and sit on the toilet, and then it’s immediate, it’s clean and it’s satisfying. It’s efficient. I like to have my body functioning at maximum efficiency. 

It’s not an issue of urgency, and not that I want to avoid the bathroom. I enjoy reading on the toilet as much as anyone else. Actually there are times when I sit down and think, okay, I’m going to read something to pass the time while I’m here, but before I even get the book open I’m done and then I think, well that’s silly, or sometimes I just sit there and read anyway. I never shit after I’ve opened a book; it just never happens that way. I like that it doesn’t involve muscular straining, it’s all in my head: when I wanna go, my brain calmly and rationally tells my gut that it’s time. 

I don’t know if it’s relevant, but the first time I ever shit on the big girl pot was because my mom bribed me with a single m&m.